Right now Gohan was thinking that coming to a night club was a mistake. Not only did he not realize what kind of a place this was before coming here but drinking alcohol after Videl specifically told them not to do so was a huge mistake as well.
Last thing he remembered was someone handing him a drink after Erasa pulled him out to dance and everything after that was a blur. He vaguely remembered someone pulling him out of the crowd and going into a room but his world became clear again when he suddenly puked in some place he didn't recognize.
When he looked around he saw a little kid he didn't recognize and two men who looked like bodyguards along with his friends.
The little kid started talking, "Son Gohan, 16."
As he was still barely awake, before he could think too much about it he replied, "Yeah, that's right." however his thinking was slowly getting faster and the absurdity of the situation was becoming more apparent to him.
Next the kid said, "You are so much different… Disappointing really." rather than a statement this came off more as him thinking out loud. It didn't seem like he expected a response back.
However Gohan still replied with relative calmness, getting angry at a kid wouldn't mean a lot, he learned that by dealing with his brother, "Who do you think I should be similar to be to be less disappointing then?"
Ignoring the words Gohan said the kid touched his arms a bit before saying, "You have the smell of sweat on you, you must have moved your body around a bit but you haven't trained at all…"
Gohan wasn't sure of what he smelled like himself but after paying attention to it for a moment he realized that the kid was surprisingly right under all the smells he was subjected to this night, there was a faint smell of sweat from the tennis match he played against Erasa this afternoon. Even though he bathed, he didn't expect it to remain on him.
Erasa also smelled Gohan a bit then said, "Hey you have to be messing with us right now, there is no sweat on him at all." to which the kid answered by just shrugging as if he didn't care about what she thought at all.
"Anyways, I hope you aren't as disappointing as this next time I see you, being weaker than these three is a disgrace." and he slowly got up.
Gohan looked at the back of this small kid when he was leaving, though he was as short as his brother and half as old as him, he felt way smaller and weaker when he compared himself.
After they left Erasa asked to Videl, "Who was that kid? Do you know?" Videl was still clearly very angry at Erasa but she answered regardless.
"Trunks Brief." after those two words there was a good ten seconds of silence where no one knew what to say.
Sharpner broke the silence and said to Gohan, "He seemed to know you."
Gohan however didn't know this kid at all. He had never thought that someone from the prestigious Brief family would not only know his name but also have expectations of him. No matter how hard he tried, there was nothing he could remember.
So he replied, "And I don't know him… Maybe because I won a scholarship, I might have gotten the attention of Capsule Corp?"
Videl said, "No, it's not that. I'll tell you what he was talking about later Gohan. Now, we are leaving this please. Erasa, Sharpner, I'll talk to you two after school tomorrow." with seething rage barely contained behind each word.
Erasa sheepishly said, "Then Videl… Could you drop us home, taxis would cost a ton." Gohan didn't know if Erasa was being genuine or intentionally trying to make Videl angrier but she succeeded regardless.
She shouted, "Move out!" and pointed towards the door, not wanting to push her buttons any longer, Erasa, Sharpner and Gohan quickly got out of the night club.
Normally people weren't allowed to use Capsule Copters in roads, you needed to open them in specialized helipads or roofs but Videl didn't particularly care about that now.
After getting into the Capsule Copter Videl dropped both Erasa and Sharpner to their houses. They both lived relatively close to Orange High. Compared to the skyscraper Gohan could see in the distance, he understood how his house could be more expensive than their apartment flats but he still wasn't convinced that his house costed about as much as a mansion.
Finally it was just him along with Videl in the Capsule Copter, he asked, "What did you understand from what Trunks said about me? I genuinely don't know him." though he wasn't sure about how somehow he met a week ago could know more about a topic involving him, than him, he still wanted to learn.
"It is simple really, he knows your father" Videl replied. This answer was something Gohan more or less expected, his father had to be behind this unlikely connection but he hoped Videl knew exactly how.
After thinking for a moment he said, "Is it because LL35 works with Capsule Corp?" that was the only way how he could see Trunks Brief of all people knowing his name and even his age.
Videl however shoot her head and said, "Not at all, LL35 works with Capsule Corp because your father is the childhood friend of Bulma Brief. So I bet Trunks saw 'Uncle Goku' more than once or twice while growing up."
Gohan said in surprise, "But I never heard about this…" he stopped before he continued more. Gohan knew practically nothing about his father, not even that he was a fighter so he shouldn't have been surprised that he didn't know about his friends and how he spent his youth. Maybe he had a blue blood background to have been friends with Bulma Brief.
He asked Videl, "How did you come across this?" what he couldn't understand however was how Videl learned about this so quickly. He only talked about his father to her two days ago but she already learned about his past more than he did.
She kept it simple, "I found a photo of them together from when your father was 11." while showing the photo from the 21st World Martial Arts tournament. She didn't say anything about it after.
This revolution of his unfamiliarity with his father hit hard to Gohan. Why didn't his father, who knew the richest and the smartest person in the planet didn't do anything with that connection of his. If he didn't coincidentally run into someone who had the means to investigate it, he might have died before learning about his father's legacy.
When they reached the roof of the Skyscraper Gohan lived in, Videl said to him, "Trunks thinks you'll be more like your father if you trained. Think about it." and left.
However the prospect of being more like his father made Gohan realize why his mother didn't want him to be more like his father. Despite knowing all those people and having all those connections, his family still lived like they didn't know what money was.
Cooking a meal that his mother would need to spend an hour on would only take him 20 minutes, to read a book he wanted, he only needed to open his phone, rather than carved wooden toys, his brother could have the best of the best. However his father denied them of this. Gohan was now more sure than ever that he didn't want to be like his father.
That little arrogant kid might have even seen his father more than his brother in these past years. That was not fair in his eyes, not at all.
Right now it was about as far from the morning as it was from the sundown. Gohan didn't know whether he should sleep or not, he didn't actually feel tired at all ever since he was sobered up by Trunks. He was still going to sleep since he thought this energy he had right now could be the effects of alcohol. So he set up an alarm and slept.
Tomorrow at school he realized the energy he had didn't decrease at all. He wanted to use it up, he wanted to run, jump, do sports however he promised himself last night that he wouldn't train. Bearing with it until it went away seemed like the best option right now.
He arrived before Videl, she probably was in some crime scene, her dedication was really impressive, Gohan was sure he wouldn't be able a become a hero like her, it just wasn't in his personality.
Erasa and Sharpner were chatting about last night when he got close to them, he caught Erasa saying, "I am pretty sure Videl is going to kill us, how long do you think it'll last?"
Sharpner was just about to reply to her when he saw Gohan coming, "Probably two- Oh Gohan, how are you, do you have a hangover?" Erasa and Sharpner were clearly very anxious about Videl's response today however they still smiled in front of Gohan and asked about him.
Feeling lucky to have such attentive friends, Gohan answered, "I don't know what a 'hangover' is but I felt better than ever this morning. Energized and sober." as relief washed Erasa and Sharpner's faces, Gohan felt happy to have met them.
Gohan didn't really want Videl to get too mad at those two, they weren't the ones who gave him drinks and they only wanted to show a village boy how to have a fun night. They didn't intend it to go wrong.
Only after an hour after the school started did Videl come, she was in a bad mood, Gohan didn't know if she was in a bad mood because her crime fighting went bad or if it was because of what happened yesterday.
Although she sat next to either Sharpner or Erasa all week last week, she sat with Gohan today. After everyone exchanged their greetings as normal, there was a deafening silence between the four of them. Videl didn't want to talk, Gohan naturally wasn't the talkative type and Erasa and Sharpner knew better than to talk.
The entire day passed like this without any real conversation between them, there was some small talk of course, like asking what the next lesson was or requesting some salt but Erasa and Sharpner looked like they were waiting for their own funeral.
After the school ended Erasa approached Gohan and said, "I knew I promised to show you around this week but it seems I won't be able to at least until a while later. Please excuse me." and laughed a bit but the way that laugh came off as labored made Gohan sadder than before he heard it.
Videl took Erasa and Sharpner with her to her home however the smile on her face made her look like she was going to perform 'advanced interrogation' on people who killed her parents.
Gohan didn't bother thinking too much more about what would happen to them, Videl would most likely not kill them and even if they lost a limb or two Gohan would still see them as friends.
However as he going home, the energy within his body was getting too much to handle, his hands, arms, legs and feet, every muscle in his body wanted to move and spend that energy, finally be free of it.
He decided to use one of the privileges that came with his house, a private closed swimming pool, swimming was something he did in the summer to cool off after studying for 7-8 hours, not training, even his mother didn't oppose it.
After a quick call with the Satan Star Complex's costumer services, he learned where the swimming pool was and when he finally threw himself into the pool, his muscles which felt they were on fire finally felt free.
The resistance of water which normally made swimming feel worse, was something he was craving more of right now. As he was quickly zipping from the one end of the pool to the other in every form of swimming he could think of, he wished that the water was thicker so that he needed to use more of his strength, more of his energy. As thick as syrup would be nice, no as thick as mercury.
After swimming as fast as he could for God knows how long, Gohan finally felt like he was calming down. Even though he should have felt like dying right now, even though muscle pains and pained breathed should have been his experience, Gohan felt liberated.
His muscles felt like they were being used for the first time in his life, his lungs felt like they breathed in for the first time, his eyes felt like they were seeing for the first time and his heart was beating for the first time. He was feeling as a newborn baby who left the womb of his mother mere moments ago. Only instead of crying, he was laughing as hard as he could.
Gohan who was resting on the surface of the water calmed down and realized that despite his conviction to not train less than 24 hours ago, he had already trained harder than he ever had and it felt good, great even.
He slowly got up to take a shower and wear his clothes. He hoped that he would never have to use this swimming pool again however coming here whenever he felt energized was much preferable to going to his gym. At least here he could comfort himself by saying he liked swimming regardless.
While he was going home he realized that he was extremely hungry however he didn't want to cook. He looked up for some numbers in his phone and ordered two large pizza. He would usually eat one but he went for two today.
Finishing his homework felt harder than usual. It wasn't the content that challenged Gohan, no. It was the debilitating hunger that made it impossible for him to focus. He still finished it in 15 minutes but if his mother were here, she would have told him off for not finishing it in 10.
Finally the arrived and he gorged on it like how his father used to, normally he would be more reserved but right now he couldn't afford to act that way. When he extended his hand to grab another slice, it came back empty. Gohan didn't know how he still felt this hungry after eating two entire pizza.
He called up and ordered five more. Even though eating seven pizza in a single night felt like something only people whose existence could be summed up with the word 'gluttony', Gohan couldn't feel ashamed in front of pain that made his stomach feel like it was getting torn apart.
He ate, ate and ate. By the fifth pizza, he was feeling slightly satiated, by the sixth, he was only slightly hungry and the seventh one finally made him feel full. He had only seen eating at this level from his father who could eat fish as big as cars by himself. Gohan was still not at that level, he ate maybe a tenth of that now if he was being generous but even though he was naive, he wasn't naive enough to not know that he had broken the human limit in how much a stomach could handle.
This discovery of his body's superb potential made him understand once again why Videl saw him as an upcoming fighting prodigy. Just through being able to eat this much, he would be able to train more and have more energy.
However this train of thought of his didn't continue for long. Gohan didn't think being a glutton would be an advantage in fighting. On the contrary, he might fall out of shape due to eating like this. Without someone experienced in diets and someone experienced in exercises, his eating and swimming sessions might even be bad for him despite how they felt.
Gohan decided to sleep on it, he would look at how his body was tomorrow and depending on how it went, he might continue on this cycle. However ideally he just wouldn't feel that absurd energy again.